Usually a window Screen Shot in OSX comes with a huge (40px) border that provides an aesthetic shadow. Unfortunately it makes the Screen Shots huge! Further, while you can't shrink the size of the shadow (which would be nice) you can turn it off completely. On the command line run:…

Terminal uses /usr/bin/login to launch new shells, by default this prints out the last login time and the contents of /etc/motd. To look up the last login time login searches through the ASL (Apple System Log) database in /var/log/asl/. These log files can be very…

Decided I'd give Homebrew a try - here's the process I used to switch over. Make a list of your ports for reference later: port installed > ports.txt Might be worth going through that list, clear out the dependency ports you can identify and leave a list of the…

You can gain a lot of control over searching your mail by using "Raw Queries" passed straight to the Spotlight Engine. To input a "Raw Query" go to "Advanced Find" - Shift-Command F. And switch the Query Type on the left side of the input box to "Raw Query", it's…

I needed to download the CLI tools within Xcode, and it needs to be done before installing MacPorts -- otherwise you'll need to re-install MacPorts. So I launched Xcode and went to "Preferences > Downloads" and clicked install on "Command Line Tools." Installed MacPorts from the dmg package on googlecode, but…

It's easy enough to set an application to start at login with a Control-Click of the application in the dock and checking "Open at Login" under Options, but if you want that application to start unobtrusively at login you'll need to go into System Preferences: System Preferences > Accounts >…